Pages

Friday, June 5, 2015

Studying Politics or Playing Politics? Scholarly Experiments Sometimes Blur the Line

The Chronicle of Higher EducationJune 5th, 2015

Before it fell apart, Michael J. LaCour’s study of political
canvassing tactics was timely not just for what he supposedly
discovered, but for how he discovered it.
In order to figure out whether gay-marriage advocates could actually
change people’s minds about the issue by having brief conversations on
their doorsteps, Mr. LaCour, a University of California at Los Angeles
graduate student, designed an experiment.
Gay and straight canvassers would knock on doors and follow scripts.
There would be before-and-after surveys, randomized assignments,
controls, and other accouterments of rigorous experimental trials.